Govt asks power plants to auction fly ash through transparent bidding

The Ministry of Power on Wednesday issued an advisory to power plants to auction fly ash through a transparent bidding process.

"It was directed that power plants shall invariably auction the fly ash through a transparent bidding process and an advisory has been issued by the Ministry of September 22, 2021 for this purpose. This will reduce the tariff of electricity and burden on the consumers," a power ministry statement said.

According to the statement, Union Minister of Power and New and Renewable Energy, R K Singh, held a meeting on Wednesday to review the status of fly ash transportation to end users and fly ash utilisation.

The meeting was attended by chairperson, Central Electricity Authority (CEA); CMD, NTPC; chairman, DVC; and senior officials of the ministry.

The advisory stated that power plants shall provide the fly ash to end users through a transparent bidding process only.

If after bidding/ auction some quantity of fly ash still remains unutilsed, then only, as one of the options, it could be considered to be given free of cost on first-come-first-served basis if the user agency is willing to bear the transportation cost, it stated.

If ash remains unutilised even after the steps taken as above, the thermal power plant (TPP) shall bear the cost of transportation of fly ash to be provided free to eligible projects.

The end users shall be obligated to source the fly ash from the nearest TPPs to reduce the cost of transportation. If the nearest TPP refuses to do so, the end user project shall approach the power ministry for appropriate directions, it added.

The transportation cost wherever required to be borne by the power plants, as per provisions of a notification by the environment ministry, shall be discovered on competitive bidding basis only.

TPPs shall prepare a panel of transportation agencies every year, based on competitive bidding for transportation in slabs of 50 kms which may be used for the period.

TPPs shall call for bids well in advance so that a transportation panel is in place as soon as the previous panel expires. There should not be a gap between the expiry of one panel and the finalisation of the fresh panel, it added.

The fly ash will be offered to the end users on the competing demand basis, that is the end users who offer the highest price and seek minimum support for transportation cost will be offered the fly ash on priority.

The power plants may offer fly ash subject to their technical restrictions such as all precautions required for dyke stability and safety etc. The plants having lower ash utilisations shall make all out efforts to increase the utilization, as per the advisory.